Jeffrey S. Peake - Böcker

US diplomacy is broken. As a result, the United States sits on the sidelines as the remainder of the world writes international law dealing with a host of vexing problems. The source of the dysfunction is domestic politics. Partisan polarization has rendered the domestic treaty process unworkable. Instead, presidents rely entirely on unilateral tools to complete their agreements, making them far weaker and less legitimate. Using a mixed-methods approach, Peake assesses the politics surrounding treaty ratification and the use of unilateral authority since World War Two, with a particular focus on the twenty-first century. He employs original data from 1949 through 2020, including 1,000 treaties and more than 3,000 executive agreements. The analysis provides case studies of the domestic politics of several recent international agreements, including on climate change, Iranian nuclear weapons, security in Iraq and Afghanistan, human rights, and the law of the sea.

“Krutz and Peake’s book . . . puts another stake in the heart of the ‘imperial presidency’ argument.” —Lisa L. Martin, University of Wisconsin–Madison, American Review of Politics“Krutz and Peake reach their conclusions as a result of carefully crafted examination that might be cited as a model of political analysis of this sort . . . As [they] introduce each chapter with a summary of the argument as developed and supported to that point, the reader can enter into and understand their discussion and argument at virtually any point in the book. In sum, Treaty Politics and the Rise of Executive Agreements is a clearly written and important book that adds substantially to the existing literature on the presidency and on presidential-congressional relations.”—Roger E. Kanet, University of Miami, International Studies Review“One can only hope that this fine and challenging book starts an argument, or at least a dialogue, about presidential power in a post-Bush era. It merits the attention of presidency and congressional scholars, and those interested in the interaction of America’s political institutions.”—Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount University, Journal of Politics

Modern presidents engage in public leadership through national television addresses, routine speechmaking, and by speaking to local audiences. With these strategies, presidents tend to influence the media's agenda. In fact, presidential leadership of the news media provides an important avenue for indirect presidential leadership of the public, the president's ultimate target audience. Although frequently left out of sophisticated treatments of the public presidency, the media are directly incorporated into this book's theoretical approach and analysis. The authors find that when the public expresses real concern about an issue, such as high unemployment, the president tends to be responsive. But when the president gives attention to an issue in which the public does not have a preexisting interest, he can expect, through the news media, to directly influence public opinion. Eshbaugh-Soha and Peake offer key insights on when presidents are likely to have their greatest leadership successes and demonstrate that presidents can indeed "break through the noise" of news coverage to lead the public agenda.

Modern presidents engage in public leadership through national television addresses, routine speechmaking, and by speaking to local audiences. With these strategies, presidents tend to influence the media's agenda. In fact, presidential leadership of the news media provides an important avenue for indirect presidential leadership of the public, the president's ultimate target audience. Although frequently left out of sophisticated treatments of the public presidency, the media are directly incorporated into this book's theoretical approach and analysis. The authors find that when the public expresses real concern about an issue, such as high unemployment, the president tends to be responsive. But when the president gives attention to an issue in which the public does not have a preexisting interest, he can expect, through the news media, to directly influence public opinion. Eshbaugh-Soha and Peake offer key insights on when presidents are likely to have their greatest leadership successes and demonstrate that presidents can indeed "break through the noise" of news coverage to lead the public agenda.